How motherhood changes the brain

Pregnancy and childbirth set off some of the starkest biological alterations a woman's brain undergoes. So how come no one tells you about them?

A mother with a stroller.
(Image credit: AlexLinch/iStock)

In the weeks after my first son was born, I squandered hours of precious sleep leaning over his bassinet to check that he was still breathing. I researched potential dangers that seemed to grow into monstrous reality by the blue light of my smartphone. Among them: The lead paint my husband and I had discovered, a real but manageable risk, had turned our new home into a hazard zone. I cleaned our floors incessantly but still imagined a cloud of poison dust following us as I carried the baby, so tiny and fragile, from room to room.

When the doctor screened for postpartum depression during my six-week checkup, she noted that my responses to the questionnaire were somewhat mixed though my score was within the normal range. She asked whether I had thoughts about harming myself or my child, and when I said no, she moved on. But I was struggling. Before baby, I had managed a tendency toward low-level worry. Now it was as if the volume had been turned up. Among the biggest worries I faced was worry itself.

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